The Poet's Work: An Introduction to Czeslaw Milosz

Born in the early years of the 20th century, in Lithuania, Czeslaw Milosz, a self-described "connoisseur of heavens and abysses" has produced a corpus of poems, essays, memoirs, and fiction of great depth and range. In "The Poet's Work" Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn follow Milosz's wanderings in exile from Poland to Paris to Berkeley as they chart the development of his art. They relate his life and his works to the unfolding of his thought. "The Poet's Work" is not only an introduction to Milosz; it is also a record of the poet's own interpretations of his work. As colleagues of Milosz at Berkeley, Nathan and Quinn had long, detailed discussions with the poet. Nathan and Quinn reveal why Milosz is a true visionary, a poet of ideas in history, and they show how the influence of Blake, Simone Weil, Dostoevsky, Lev Shestov, and Swedenborg, together with Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, and Robinson Jeffers, has enriched his vision. Milosz's lifelong experience of totalitarian regimes that exalt science and technology over individual needs and aspirations, his sense of alienation as an emigre, and his humanistic zeal and belief in the primacy of living have brought a prismatic quality to his poetry. "The Poet's Work" is an introduction to Milosz that should inform and engage both scholars and general readers.